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I got through passport control and customs and then picked up my checked baggage in good time, grabbed a limo curbside at Pearson and hit the downtown core in 20 minutes.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “I’ll be home in record time.”

However, it took another 45 minutes to get from Spadina Ave. and the Gardiner Expressway to my waterfront condo. The trouble was gridlocked traffic due to several events taking place in the city’s core — an NFL football game at the Rogers Centre, the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair at Exhibition Place, a large trade show at the Metro Convention Centre, plus the usual Sunday throngs coming into the city to enjoy a beautiful fall day.

Torontonians like to grumble about all the activity in our city — including a mayor-elect who wants to move marathons, charity walks and cultural events out of the city — but after my visit to Austin, I was very happy to see our city so animated.

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In Austin, the city went to bed at 5 p.m., and on the weekend there was nobody on the streets. Even the Starbucks was deserted. There were no homes in the city core, and no condo towers with views of the spectacular state capital building or the beautiful parks dotting Lady Byrd Johnson Lake.

It made me happy to return home, where the streets are alive day and night with residents and visitors who come to our city for the culture, shows, sporting events and other festivals.

So, where do all the people who work at the Texas state capital building and in the other office towers live? In the suburbs, of course.

In fabulous homes with prices that made me green with envy. For just over $260,000, builder Taylor Morrison (Monarch in Canada) offered homes on 50-foot by 110-foot lots that were about 2,400 square feet — equipped with all the bells and whistles, including ensuite bathrooms that are the size of my living room. For $700,000, Taylor Morrison offered 3,000-square-foot homes on 65-foot lots which included huge chef-style kitchens and ensuite bathrooms that included kitchenettes.

At the Steiner Ranch development, a master-planned community on a former cattle ranch, builders included Drees Custom Homes and Ryland Homes. The community featured community centres, schools, parkland, hiking and biking trails and 120-foot-wide lots on the water with their own docks. Here’s where we started to see the prices rise, as lots were priced at close to $1 million before the house was built.

We also saw a trend towards building master bedrooms on the main level, with games rooms, pool rooms, theatre rooms and more bedrooms on the second level. (Like many American homes, these houses did not have basements, which is why we saw so many recreational amenities on the second floor.)

Almost all of the homes were built with thick walls and shaded windows, leaving the interiors dark, a result of living in constant sunshine and warm temperatures. But for this sun-starved Canadian, I found it a little heavy.

One house stood out among the rest, however. It was a Prairie-style home measuring over 4,000 square feet and priced at just under $1 million. In Toronto, it would easily sell for $3 million. It was light and airy and was finished with ultra-modern kitchens and bathrooms.

Earlier this year, BILD conducted a highrise tour to Boston, where the trend was to super expensive units. The condos were huge but were priced beyond anything we could imagine in Toronto (about $800 a square foot compared to about $500 in Toronto), with astronomical maintenance fees ($1 a square foot wasn’t unusual).

I wondered aloud at the time, “Where is the entry-level condos?” The answer was, “There aren’t any. First-time buyers have to move to the suburbs.”

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